Mahabharata may be history while Bhagavatam is more than history. Mahabharata mostly includes the outer world of Krishna, while Bhagavatam talks of the inner world. If by feeling parakiya bhava, one can move to the immense love and spiritual heights, then what is wrong in feeling it?

If the bhava of Gopis takes one to the spiritual ecstasy what is wrong in it? though it is a fantasy? Thus let us have a willing suspension of disbelief and enter into this feeling of Gopis.

It is believed that by feeling oneself as parakiya one can love more than as svakiya (belonging to him or becoming wife to him). That is why the Bhakti literature gives more importance to Radha and other Gopis than Rukmini and Satyabhama. Rukmini is Krishna's wife. Yet she is not considered as a great example in Madhurabhava, because nothing amazing is there in her. She loved Krishna and married and lived with Him. That is all.

But Radha is parakiya, longed for Krishna throughout her life, having the secret love to Him which took her to the spiritual heights. Radha is not Krishna's wife. Rukmini is more historical than Radha. But Radha is more spiritual than Rukmini.